You play as a god to a village of people who worship you. The more you bless them (build houses, increase resources, food etc) the more their numbers increase. You "Jesus" comes in the form of a animal which you teach using hand motions. The more powerful you are (more worshipers) the bigger your animal.

You can play as a good god or an evil one (Black or White). You also have to battle with other gods and their worshipers.

This PC game is very fun and addictive.

Spore: Spore isn't a God game per say but it does involve "Intelligent design, evolution, terraforming etc...." You can play god in a since.

The opening scene begins with a ice comet traveling through space until it crashes onto a planet. This is where you being, as a simple cell who must eat and survive in a pool of other organisms doing the same. As you grow you get new body parts to increase various attributes. Each time you mate you are able to change your organism which eventually become a sea creature, which eventually goes on land, evolve to a tribal being, to civilized being and lately to space traveling being.

Once you begin space travel, you can travel to the various stars in your galaxy (there are hundreds if not thousands of stars). Each star may have planets of beings in any of the stages you came from. You can also terraform planets to make them habitable for you civilization to spread. Each player creates their creatures and can upload creations from other players connected to the Spore server.

(01-07-2011 11:38 PM)Tytanium Wrote: The concept of God has made its way into many games. Such as

Black and White:

You play as a god to a village of people who worship you. The more you bless them (build houses, increase resources, food etc) the more their numbers increase. You "Jesus" comes in the form of a animal which you teach using hand motions. The more powerful you are (more worshipers) the bigger your animal.

You can play as a good god or an evil one (Black or White). You also have to battle with other gods and their worshipers.

This PC game is very fun and addictive.

Spore: Spore isn't a God game per say but it does involve "Intelligent design, evolution, terraforming etc...." You can play god in a since.

The opening scene begins with a ice comet traveling through space until it crashes onto a planet. This is where you being, as a simple cell who must eat and survive in a pool of other organisms doing the same. As you grow you get new body parts to increase various attributes. Each time you mate you are able to change your organism which eventually become a sea creature, which eventually goes on land, evolve to a tribal being, to civilized being and lately to space traveling being.

Once you begin space travel, you can travel to the various stars in your galaxy (there are hundreds if not thousands of stars). Each star may have planets of beings in any of the stages you came from. You can also terraform planets to make them habitable for you civilization to spread. Each player creates their creatures and can upload creations from other players connected to the Spore server.

Tytanium

Don't forget to mention that Black and White can be extremely buggy, the combat is very easy (especially if you get good at hurling rocks out of your influence ring), and precisely punishing or adoring your pet is difficult as you can easily slap it instead of petting it due to the jerky controls of the hand. I never got very far into the game, as they also do not caution you about building. If you place certain buildings at the edge of your city it stops it from growing (namely fields) and I couldn't find any option to destroy them in the submenus, etc.

(02-07-2011 04:38 AM)Maskelyne Wrote: Don't forget to mention that Black and White can be extremely buggy, the combat is very easy (especially if you get good at hurling rocks out of your influence ring), and precisely punishing or adoring your pet is difficult as you can easily slap it instead of petting it due to the jerky controls of the hand. I never got very far into the game, as they also do not caution you about building. If you place certain buildings at the edge of your city it stops it from growing (namely fields) and I couldn't find any option to destroy them in the submenus, etc.

Yeh....I remember the bugs. But the game was so fun, concept appealing that it wasn't until hour 50 that I noticed them. Hurling rocks....hated that. I rarely used the pet, "if you want something done right, do it yourself" is what I always say.

Creatio-lutionism?

I don't believe in that. But sometimes I wonder if its possible that our development was somehow sped up by some outside forces/beings. This is just a theory but we've only been a species for a few million years (very young comparatively speaking) yet look at what we've accomplished technologically.

If you take the game Spore as an example, there is an item you can place on a planet which causes a species to advance to the next level of understanding. I believe that Aliens exist and if someone presented proof or evidence of this theory I wouldn't be surprised.

I was just teasing the developer of spore(same guy who made the sims?) coined the term 'creatio-lutionism'. I agree though, it would be interesting to see how an outside force could lead us in a certain direction, I think the reasons why they did it might be terrifying either way though.

(02-07-2011 10:09 AM)UnderTheMicroscope Wrote: I was just teasing the developer of spore(same guy who made the sims?) coined the term 'creatio-lutionism'. I agree though, it would be interesting to see how an outside force could lead us in a certain direction, I think the reasons why they did it might be terrifying either way though.

Will Wright. I wonder how many kids were banned from playing Spore because of the absence of God. "But mom I am god, I make the creatures" "Yes, but you didn't create the stars, or the planet or all the other animals....this game is an abomination".

Natural selection is interesting enough. There is a documentary series on Netflix... Evidence of Aliens (think thats the name) where they show ancient relics that prove these civilizations seen flying craft. I only seen the first episode. My only question is, if this were true why isn't it mainstream info?

Let's not forget the amusing but ultimately flawed strategy game Heaven and Hell, plus the LucasArts game Afterlife (a city sim game though the cities are replaced by heaven and hell where the powers that be check in on your progress).

Both of them were not successes by any definition of the word, for that matter though Black and White was not a huge success either. So perhaps god games are not the best market when it comes to video games. That being said Fable: Journeys which uses Kinect to allow you to form lightning bolts by stretching your hands apart, charge up fireballs by making the appropriate gestures, etc is probably going to be the closest thing to a god game that's being released soon.

I could easily see the game leading to several people shouting out "I shall smite thee with lightning." before forming the bolt and throwing it at an enemy.

(02-07-2011 12:21 PM)Maskelyne Wrote: Let's not forget the amusing but ultimately flawed strategy game Heaven and Hell, plus the LucasArts game Afterlife (a city sim game though the cities are replaced by heaven and hell where the powers that be check in on your progress).

Both of them were not successes by any definition of the word, for that matter though Black and White was not a huge success either. So perhaps god games are not the best market when it comes to video games. That being said Fable: Journeys which uses Kinect to allow you to form lightning bolts by stretching your hands apart, charge up fireballs by making the appropriate gestures, etc is probably going to be the closest thing to a god game that's being released soon.

I could easily see the game leading to several people shouting out "I shall smite thee with lightning." before forming the bolt and throwing it at an enemy.

I haven't played any of those. I think a god game could work. Think city builder but instead..universe builder. As a god you'd have to keep your creations from destroying their world before they develop a way to travel to other worlds. Or just build beautiful planets, stars and other anomalies. Black and White won on concept though it didn't hold up. Spore won on concept and scale though its not very scientifically accurate. A true God game can break all the rules...."If God created the Big Bang, what created God.....?" "Duh....God created himself....lol." Someone actually said that to me....

I guess that this doesn't really fit in the same type of genre as the 'god' games you are talking about, but 'Left Behind: Eternal Forces' is a game where you go around trying to convert people to Christianity, and if they don't accept, you kill them. I am not sure if it is still being sold as it received absolutely horrible reviews and bad sales, though.

On another note, has anyone heard of a Spore-type game where you control an ecosystem except there is actual natural selection and mutations involved? I understand that it would be hard to develop because evolution is extremely broad and games tend to have much more specific rules, but if there is one, it would be very cool to mess with evolution of the organisms you create. It would be similar to a genetic algorithm, but once it starts, you would still have control and the different populations would interact.